Leafs rally in third to beat Caps

Mikhail Grabovski seals comeback victory for Toronto with nifty goal in the shootout.

Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin, left, falls in the net as Toronto Maple Leafs' Fredrik Sjostrom defends. Toronto came back from a 4-1 deficit to win 5-4 in a shootout Dec. 6.

By:Kevin McGranSports Reporter, Published on Mon Dec 06 2010

WASHINGTON—It turns out the long-departed Jason Blake left a positive legacy on the Toronto Maple Leafs that transformed into a surprising two points against the Washington Capitals.

Mikhail Grabovski used a Blake-inspired turnaround backhander to score in the shootout Monday night — the only goal of the tiebreak — to rally the Maple Leafs to a 5-4 victory in a game the Leafs probably didn’t have any business winning.

“It’s the Jason Blake move,” said a sheepish Grabovski when asked to describe goal. “I didn’t feel nervous because we needed the win. We needed the two points.”

Their second shootout win in a row was satisfying, yet improbable on many fronts. The Leafs were outshot 36-28, outplayed through two-plus periods and trailed 4-1 after 40 minutes. Goalie Jonas Gustavsson played hot potato with the puck. The power play was having trouble gaining the zone. And so many players continued to struggling to bury their scoring chances.

Only the presence of Colby Armstrong — the yappy cheerleader on the team — kept the team’s spirits up for what could have been a dispiriting third period.

“That’s about all I did,” said Armstrong, who found himself taken from the first line in place of Nazem Kadri as coach Ron Wilson looked for offence. “We got down and we battled back. “I don’t think we played our best game for sure, we came in and stole two points. We’ll take the best parts of the game out of it tonight and move forward.”

The reformed first line — Kessel, Kadri and Tyler Bozak — didn’t do much. The offence came from elsewhere: Clarke MacArthur with two including the game tying goal at 18:36 of the third, just 59 seconds after Tim Brent got the Leafs within one. Grabovski started the rally at 4:16 of the third as the Leafs finally started to outplay the Capitals.

“We always believed in ourselves,” said Grabovski. “It doesn’t matter the score. You keep going. You never know how you finish the game.”

MacArthur, who also scored on the power play in the first, was euphoric at scoring his first goal in 16 games.

“I just felt like I had chances, then I went three or four or five games and I’m not getting any chances,” said MacArthur. “I feel like I’m in a spot to pass all the time. It comes and goes. If I don’t worry about it, the little slumps will be shorter than 15, 20 games, or whatever this one was. It was too long.”As the team’s primary checking centre, Brent’s job with the Leafs is to prevent scoring. He scored the first two games of the year, and despite poor offence, he was still only a minus-2 heading into the game.

He enjoyed the moment of scoring for the first time in 24 games, deflecting defenceman Tomas Kaberle’s shot.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Brent. “It’s not what they ask me to do too many times, but if I can chip in here and there, I think were 3-and-0 when I score.”

Perhaps the most satisfying part of the victory was how Gustavsson persevered. He struggled through the first two periods — especially with rebound control allowing two goals by call-up Mathieu Perreault, one by Alex Ovechkin and another to Mike Knuble.

But in the third, he stopped a 2-on-1 after Grabovski’s goal. And in the shootout, he robbed Perreault by getting his stick on the puck after Perreault had deked him cleanly.

“It shows a lot of character coming back in games, working hard no matter what’s on the scoreboard. That’s huge,” said Gustavsson. “We have to keep going the same direction and work even harder the net game. We can’t settle down. We have to keep working. “I really like that effort from the guys. One of the best teams in the league and we’re down three goals and we come back in a road game. That’s great for us.”

But the Leafs had come back before in Washington. They trailed 3-1 Nov. 3, rallied to tie only to lose 5-4 in a shootout.

“Washington got a little sloppy towards the end,” said Leafs coach Ron Wilson. “I think they thought the game was over. We took advantage of their miscues.”

The Capitals are 3-3-0 in their last six and are 12-3-1 at home and were left wondering what went wrong.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Ovechkin. “A 4-1 lead after two periods is pretty big. Losing a game like this is pretty bad for us.

The Leafs are 2-3-1 in their last six and 3-7-1 on the road.

The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Maple Leafs. They get the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Philadelphia at home on Thursday and the Montreal Canadiens at home on Saturday, a spate of four games in six nights against the four best teams in the Eastern Conference.

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